Wacky, weird, funny rulings are just part of the game of golf

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This whole rules of golf thing has devolved into quite the kerfuffle, hasn't it?

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Arm-chair marshal disqualifications. Tiddlywinks jokes. A violation so tiny it takes slow-motion replay -- or 15 minutes of pause-and-rewind with your DVR remote -- to even think you see it. Adjectives floating around -- from players -- calling certain rules fiddly, persnickety or downright bollox. Fine for 1932, not 2011.

Jack Nicklaus, for gosh sakes, serving up the idea that, most probably, the whole book of the Rules of Golf needs to be changed. Slimmed down. Simplified. Does the current complex tome really make sense when a rules official tells Nicklaus it was harder to pass the test to officiate a tournament than it was to pass the bar to practice law?

Everyone has an opinion and we're being bombarded by them. Not to mention the news that the game's most noted rules keepers -- the R&A and USGA -- will be taking a look at some of the issues.

And, yes, the game is full of sad stories. Dustin Johnson at last year's PGA Championship. Roberto De Vicenzo at the 1968 Masters. Ian Woosnam's caddie's 15-club mistake at the 2001 British Open. Craig Stadler kneeling on a towel to keep his pants dry in 1987 at Torrey Pines.

But we thought it might be fun to take a look at a few of the strange and often amusing rules violations -- and in most cases subsequent penalties -- that have come mostly from, um, brain blips that we've collected over some three-plus decades around the game. So, pour another cup of coffee and read on:

• Steve Elkington was playing in an event in Sweden when he hit a shot into a hazard and had to wait by his ball to play his next shot. He didn't think, reached down and grabbed a blade of grass to chew on. He was penalized two strokes for moving a loose impediment.

• John Fought and Jim Colbert got a chuckle at the Tucson Open one year when Mark McCumber had to wait in a hazard to play a shot. McCumber tapped his club on the ground, brushed at some leaves and looked at his partners who were grinning. McCumber had forgotten where he was. Two shots.

Faxon

• Brad Faxon had a sea gull pick his golf ball off a fairway and drop it in the water during the Honda Classic one year. Then the gull came back and moved playing partner Bruce Fleisher's ball. Neither one was penalized because the bird was deemed an "outside agency." Faxon also had a dog run off with his golf ball in 1985 at the AT&T Pebble Beach Pro-Am. Same ruling. At the 1998 World Series of Golf, Lee Janzen was disqualified on his birthday because the previous day his putt on the 17th hole had hung on the lip before falling in. He and playing partner Vijay Singh both looked at the ball before it fell. As it turned out, Janzen only had 10 seconds to look at the putt once he got to the hole to see the ball. It stayed for more than the 20 seconds. He signed for a 3 on the hole, but, according to the rules, it should have been a 4, so he was disqualified.

• Fuzzy Zoeller was in a long hazard at Muirfield Village one year and he was "about 100 yards" from his ball. He moved a stone into some water so he could easily step across the stream. Again, two shots for moving a loose impediment.

• At the 1996 GTE Suncoast Classic, Bob Murphy's ball ricocheted off the lip of a bunker and hit him in the head. It was a two-shot penalty.

• Paul Azinger was disqualified from the 2003 Canadian Open for a ruling with a twist. A viewer called in to report that, during the first round, Azinger's caddie, Ted Scott, removed the flagstick just a tad before he should have. It seems playing partner Fred Funk's ball was still moving -- barely -- after a chip onto the green when Scott pulled the flag, which falls under the unauthorized attendance" of the flagstick rule. Officials reviewed the tape and Zinger was disqualified the next day for signing an incorrect scorecard.

• Doug Tewell got his tee times reversed in San Diego one year. He was working out in the fitness trailer when he looked outside to check the weather and saw his playing partners -- Bob Tway and Mark Wiebe -- on the tee. He ran to the locker room, changed shoes, grabbed his caddie and caught his group on the first fairway. He still lost two shots and missed the cut by one shot.

Imada

• Ryuji Imada's 26 penalty shots at last year's Mission Hills Star Trophy is still fresh in our minds -- he didn't read the rules sheet and, playing lift-clean-and-place, took one-club-length drops instead of scorecard-drops. He incurred 13 two-shot penalties. Years before -- at the 1980 Bob Hope Classic, to be exact -- Jay Haas didn't read the rules either. They stipulated that relief from cart paths were changed from two club lengths to one. Haas wound up with 10 total penalty shots for the day, turning a 75 into an 85.

• The weekend before the 1984 Shell Houston Open, Fred Couples was looking over the field list in the local paper. He didn't see his name, so he called the tournament. Couples, it seems, forgot to enter the event.

• But the all-time best brain-blip penalties? The two-fer happened at the rain-delayed first round of the 1987 PLAYERS CHAMPIONSHIP and longtime reporters refer to it as "Not now". Before the rain delay, Raymond Floyd's caddie had walked ahead of him on the 11th fairway and dropped the bag so the open end was facing the tee. Floyd's drive rolled into rough and into his open golf bag, which is a two-shot penalty.

After the delay, Floyd asked playing partner Seve Ballesteros if he could hit a few practice balls before play resumed. Ballesteros said yes and Floyd hit a few balls into the woods by the sixth tee. He was tagged two more shots for practicing in a non-practice area. Floyd was steaming at the end of the day and, when he saw a reporter approaching, didn't wait for the question. "Not, now,'' he snapped. A few months later, the same reporter approached him and asked "Now?" They both laughed.

Melanie Hauser is a columnist for PGATOUR.COM and can be reached at melaniehauser@gmail.com. Her views do not necessarily represent the views of the PGA TOUR. Follow her on Twitter @melaniehauser.